Portland Public Schools open for the first day of the new year today. Nobody is going to the old Peninsula School these days however. The school, on the north side of N. Lombard Street at Knowles Avenue in 1945, has been replaced by an Arbies Arby’s fast food restaurant today.
(City of Portland Archives)
These two gentlemen look like they work at Crouchley Plumbing Co. rather than J.R. Chauncey Jeweler. The businesses in 1931 were at 204 and 204-1/2 N. Jersey Avenue; that’s 8709 N. Lombard using today’s street numbers. The Crouchley Plumbing Co. has been in business since 1907 and you can still walk into their office two doors down at 8717 N. Lombard.
(City of Portland Archives)
A dramatic 1938 nighttime photo of the St. Johns Bridge which was completed in 1931. The view is east looking across the Willamette River to the St. Johns neighborhood.
(City of Portland Archives)
Currin’s Drugs was located in St. Johns at 105 Philadelphia in this 1932 image; the photo is identified as being 7334 N. Philadelphia by today’s street numbering. An unknown itinerant photographer captured this scene and the era and photo style leads me to think this may be the same photographer who took the shots of our still unknown shops from a couple of weeks ago.
(City of Portland Archives)
Portland built this incinerator facility on N. Columbia Blvd. in 1932. Air quality standards forced its closure in 1970 and the building became the Archives and Records Center for the City of Portland in the 1980s. The Archives and Records Center has since moved to a beautiful new climate-controlled facility on the Portland State University campus but this building still remains in North Portland. This site is now called Chimney Park although ironically, the chimney was removed in 1990. This view looks west with N. Columbia Blvd. on the right.
(City of Portland Archives)
This nice bird’s-eye illustration of North Portland was put out by the North Portland Commercial Club in 1919. It appears to be promoting North Portland’s commercial and industrial potential and its access to various forms of transportation, i.e., rail, highway, streetcar, shipping channels, etc.
(City of Portland Archives)
The bustling St. Johns downtown area is shown in this nice 1938 photo. The view is northwest on Lombard. N. Philadelphia comes in from the front left and N. Burlington Ave. branches off to the right.
(City of Portland Archives)
